‘Our north is the south’: Softball leagues flourish in Brazilian city as Cuban arrivals outnumber Venezuelans for first time

Southern city of Curitiba ranks just behind northern entry-point towns in Cuban asylum requests

If he had been able to choose, Roberto Hernandez Tello, 59, would have gone to the United States last May, when he left Cuba in search of a better life.

However, due to Donald Trump’s anti-immigration policies, he ended up in Curitiba, in southern Brazil, 3,940 miles from his native Camagüey.

Thousands of his compatriots have arrived in Brazil this year, contributing to a shift in which, for the first time, more Cubans than Venezuelans are applying for asylum in Latin America’s largest country.

“I love Cuba, but with the crisis it’s impossible to live there now,” said Tello. “I have a 31-year-old son who lives in the US. But since Trump scrapped the parole, I chose to come to Brazil,” he added, referring to the US president’s elimination of the humanitarian programme known as CHNV, which had benefited migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.